So, have you had a PPTQ in your area yet? If so, how did it go?

I judged one of the first ones in our area on Saturday at a smaller store--we got 28 people, which seemed decent considering the location (an hour and change north of the nearest major population center) plus the fact that the region's biggest store held theirs on the same day and would have attracted a lot of potential players. The event went fairly well considering it was one of the first "real" Competitive events the store's ever run, and the owner seemed happy enough with the result to be willing to do it again next season, which is really all you can ask for. I handed out a handful of Game Losses for Deck/Decklist problems, but there were very few other penalties; I think players were used to figuring out problems on their own during games and didn't call for a judge when they really should have. I should probably have covered how and when to call a judge in my announcements, because several times I overheard players disagreeing about the rules, and not once did those players think to...well...ask. I had to step in to answer and smooth things over on my own accord.

I'm judging another one this Sunday, and it'll probably be bigger given it'll be within city limits and one of the very few Modern PPTQs on the docket--almost every other store chose to go with Standard. We'll see how it goes.

I haven't attended one yet but I don't see it being viable for me, personally. The midwest area is going to have one of the largest potential RPTQs in the world seeing as they scheduled one RPQT relative for Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. With the potential of the event to be 200+ people, getting Top-8 in this event is still difficult but also denies a lot more spots for area players than before. I think this regional system is way better for smaller areas. If there were 28 players at a PPTQ in my area, I would ecstatic because that's a small turnout in my opinion. We get that many for GPTs for GPs that nobody is going to.

I don't have input on the participation of these tournaments but only on how they are structured and the potential implications they hold.

i went to one standard PPTQ(16-20 players) but didn't play because i missed some cards, and one bad thing happened there, in the semifinals the players and the only judge(L2) had some communication problems and the players played with the wrong opponent even thought the pairings have been correctly printed and pinned to the pairing board.
So after 1 hour or so both semifinals were done and when shop owner was inserting the results he realized that the program gave different pairings, after a long peaceful discussion (20 minutes or so) the judge decided to keep the results and the final was played.
It must have been really frustrating for the ones who lost the semifinals and you could see how they were feeling, the judge felt really sorry too and apologized a lot.

I guess that in this case the problem was that most of the players knew each other and the judge too, the environment was really friendly and so they overlooked a simple process that was "looking at the pairings sheet".

I think this kind of "too friendly environment" is really great because you have a good time playing with firends for sure and the PPTQ idea is great because will get "big" tournaments in small local stores too, but for the ones who care it is a really important event that will allow you to go to the PTQ, so it's serious business for many and so i think the Judge should remind the players that it is indeed a serious event and should do the "bad boy"(like checking decks etc...).

I also think that an initial deck check done by the players should be done too, because many that go in the PPTQ might not even know what "rel: competitive" means and they might not have payed attention to their deck list, so this could avoid some unnecessary game losses.

What do you think is the ceiling level on viable PPTQs? It seems like it would be insanely difficult to spike a 200 person PPTQ and then fly(on your own dime) to a PTQ with another 200 people and Top 8 that event. Though 28 people seems like a dream come true and might be easy to talk opponents into concessions (if they can't go to the big event).

I actually prefer the PPTQ system. It's been good to me.

Also, PPTQs, at least in Southern California, are comically easy to top 8, but hard to win.